Zardari warns flood recovery could take years

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

KARACHI: President Asif Ali Zardari warned the country could take three years or more to recover from near-month long floods as authorities battled to protect cities from rising waters.

The floods have killed 1,500 people and affected up to 20 million nationwide in the country's worst natural disaster, with the threat of disease ever present in the camps sheltering survivors.

“Your guess is as good as mine, but three years is a minimum,” Zardari told reporters when asked how long it would take Pakistan to go through relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation after the floods.

“I don't think Pakistan will ever fully recover but we will move on,” the president added, saying the government was working to protect people from future flooding.

Zardari was denounced for failing to cut short a visit to Europe at the start of the disaster, and while he defended that decision, he acknowledged that some criticism of the government's response was justified.

“There will always be a 'could have been better, would have been better, should have been better'... (but) you have to understand how enormous the issue (the scale of the disaster) is,” he said.